Hyper-update 2017

Hyper-update 2017

For a while now on Twitter, I’ve been hinting at some life changes happening that are affecting my ability to do some things like stream or work on projects. Now that the dust is beginning to settle and plans are being made, I’d like to spill the beans:

As of November 2016, I am no longer in college.

The official reason on paper is that I couldn’t continue paying for classes. I ran out of scholarships, and student loans were not paying enough (as silly as that may sound). But if I’m going to be honest... I was already looking for a way to take a break, or something of the sort. I still had options to continue if I really wanted to, but I decided against them.

The stress of college was becoming unbearable. My last quarter was one of my weakest in terms of grades, and that wasn’t just because of the course load. Every day was a struggle to do just what I absolutely needed to do, so that I could collapse on my bed and rest as much as possible. And that doesn’t just describe this last quarter, either - my life has felt like it’s been draining from me as the years have gone by.

Am I exaggerating here? Probably a little. But that’s what it felt like going through it, and it’s what I remember upon looking back.

The day after the quarter ended, I perked up tremendously. I'm not spending all day in bed anymore. I’ve started streaming again, I’ve started working on projects again, I’ve started being more social. Energy levels have been so high that I frequently distract myself from one project with another one.

Surely I’m exaggerating here, too? ...Surprisingly, no. I’m still recovering from the stress, but it’s been a very quick process.

The only thing that’s been keeping me from going full tilt on any project lately is figuring out what to do now that college is, er, “out of the way.” After talking with a lot of people about my options (and praying a lot), I think I’ve decided that it’s time to go back home for a while.

My parents are very open to this, so it should be a smooth transition. I’ll be able to recover much more quickly at home, and take care of things that I couldn’t before - or just didn’t. I’ve even been presented with some unique opportunities that I don’t have here. The biggest problem with this will be finding a job at home; this was a huge factor in my decision (since I already have a job here), but I think that things will work out.

As far as what you guys will see from me: In between packing, I hope to continue working on projects (one of them is almost ready for showtime!) and do some one-off streams. Then, when I get home and things stabilize a bit - expect to see a lot from me. Streams, sketches, videos, levels, writing, and as much energy as I can feasibly wring out of this human body of mine.

2017 is looking up.

A drawing of the Mueller PLS, from Fast RMX

I’m kind of in a state of “AAAA I DREW THIS???? WHAT”

Even though the texturing didn’t turn out quite like I wanted it to (Mueller logo etc.) I’m still amazed at how well this turned out. Drawing is still kind of uncharted territory for me, and I was working with marker for the first time, so I had a lot to work against. I’m really inspired to draw more now that I know what I’m capable of!

It took long enough to nail everything down, but I think I’m finally done with my new avatar. Working on this was quite the learning experience!

WIP1: This was kind of the mockup stage. I knew the general shape I wanted, but I had no idea what specific colors to use, how to highlight the W effectively, whether the outline would work, etc.

WIP2: I changed the outline to a shadowy effect - I wanted it to look like a window into another world. This didn’t pan out so well, so I removed it in future iterations. Tried to refine the colors a bit more, but I still couldn’t figure them out.

WIP3: It was about this time that I realized I was basically going for a Material Design look, so I researched Google’s design documentation and a few tutorials on getting the shadows and colors to look right. 

WIP4: Decided to redo the geometry from scratch - some of the objects didn’t appear to be lined up quite right. I made it slightly smaller so that it could be comfortably resized to 100px. A friend suggested that the purple was too bright, so I toned it down to match the blues more closely. I also reduced the shadows because they were jumping out at me too much.

Final: I wanted the shadows to only draw along the W, so I redid the geometry again to add some shadow masks underneath the shapes. I also changed the cyan to be more blue than green, while still keeping it the same kind of relatively bright color. The results speak for themselves!

Recovery

Recovery has been a steady but very slow process.

Since moving back home, I’ve had plenty of time to rest and recover from the lovely college experience I had. My parents are taking good care of me, and I’ve had time to decompress and de-stress. In fact, there’s not been much of any stress here - I pretty much have free reign to work on anything I want to.

Yet I still find myself with little energy to actually do anything. Most days, I just... sit in bed. I know that’s enviable for a lot of people, but I’m not satisfied - I got stuff I wanna do! That said, I am still doing things, just not as much as I want to. I get things done on a weekly basis now, rather than a monthly basis - which is an improvement! But because it’s not a daily basis, I feel like I’m twiddling my thumbs and wasting time.

There are things that are going very well, however. One is that my creative energy is in full swing. I don’t think there’s been a single day since getting back that I haven’t come up with some grand new idea. The problem, then, is that most of them are going to waste, since I can’t get these ideas out of my head and into reality too reliably.

The second good thing is that my interest in my hobbies is coming back to me. While in college, there was a point where I almost completely stopped playing video games for a few months! Hard to believe, I know, considering everything else I do is steeped in them. But it felt like I could only “focus” on one thing at a time, and games were not that thing. Lately, everything’s coming back to me at once - drawing, designing, levels, mazes, even writing (to an extent). I just need to do it all more and stop sitting around.

In the end, college or not, I still struggle with the same old problem: I dream too much and work too little. That needs to change, somehow.

Why wouldn’t I be making Super Mario Maker levels with all my spare time?

A couple of these were already posted here, but I included them anyway just to keep everything in one place. If you want to catch these levels as they’re posted, check out my Twitter.

I swear one of these days I’ll actually start writing on this blog again.